A SELF ALIGNING METHOD FOR FORMING A SELECTIVE EMITTER AND METALLIZATION IN A SOLAR CELL

摘要

A method of making contacts on solar cells is disclosed. The front surface (41) of a substrate (11) is coated with a dielectric or surface masking layer or layers (12) that contains dopants of the opposite polarity to those used in the surface of the substrate material (11). The dielectric layers or layers (12) not only acts as a diffusion source for forming the emitter for the underlying substrate (11) when heat treated, but also acts as a metallization mask during the subsequent electroless plating with solutions such as nickel and copper. The mask may be formed by laser scribing (14) which melts the layer or layers (12), thereby more heavily doping and exposing zones (15) where metallization is required.